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ADDRESSES 


ON  THE  OCCASION  OF  THE 


INAUGURATION 


WlLLIA/H  G.  BaLLANTINE 

AS 

PRESIDENT 

OF 

OBERLIN  COLLEGE 


dULY  1,1891, 


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http://www.archive.org/details/addressesonoccasOOoberrich 


ADDRESSES 


ON  THE  OCCASION  OP  THE 


INAUGURATION 


OF 


WILLIAM  GAY  BALLANTINE 


AS 


PRESIDENT  or  OBERLIN  COLLEGE 


JULY  1,  1891 


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CONTENTS 


PAGE 

PRESENTATION  OF  THE  COLLEGE  SEAL,  Ex-Pres.  James  H.  Fairchild,      5 

INAUGURAL  ADDRESS,  President  William  G.  Ballantine,    ....  9 

ADDRESS  OF  R.  A.  MILLIKAN.  '91 20 

ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DAN  F.  BRADLEY,  '82, 24 

ADDRESS  OF  MRS.  MARTHA  C.  KINCAID,  '65, 26 

ADDRESS  OF  REV.  B.  A.  IMES,  '81.            .         .         .         '. 29 

ADDRESS  OF  PROFESSOR  H.  C.  KING,  '79 33 

ADDRESS  OF  AMZI  LORENZO  BARBER,  '67, 40 

ADDRESS  OF  HON.  JOHN  SHERMAN,         . 45 


1 591 42 


OFTHE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 

^iLIFORN^bs 


PRESENTATION  OF  THE  COLLEGE  SEAL 


PRESIDENT  JAMES  H.  FAIRCHILD 


My  Brother,  Wm.  G.  B ai^lantine  :  It  is  my  pleasant  duty, 
this  morning,  at  the  introduction  of  these  exercises,  by  the 
authority  of  the  Trustees  of  Oberlin  College,  to  make  the  form- 
al announcement  of  your  election  to  the  presidency  of  the 
college,  and  to  transfer  to  your  keeping  the  appropriate  sym- 
bols of  authority  and  responsibility.  The  responsibilities  of 
this  position  fall  upon  you  by  the  unanimous  action  of  the 
Trustees,  and  with  the  hearty  approval  of  all  who  share  in 
the  college  work.  This  unanimous  and  hearty  choice  is  based 
upon  the  assurance  that  in  yourself,  the  Christian  scholar,  and 
teacher,  and  man  of  affairs,  we  find  embodied  the  essential 
qualities  of  the  standard-bearer  who  shall  lead  us  on  to  the  ac- 
complishment of  the  work  to  which  God  in  his  providence 
calls  us.  To  this  work  you  were  born  and  trained,  and  in  it 
you  have  already  passed  a  probation  of  many  years.  The 
college  is  to  be  congratulated  that  such  a  man  was  at  call,  in 
the  hour  of  its  need.  We  are  permitted  to  reckon  it  among 
the  many  evidences  of  the  gracious  Providence  which  has 
shaped  its  history.  I  am  permitted  also  to  congratulate  you, 
my  brother,  upon  the  work  to  which  you  are  called,  the  op- 
portunity which  opens  to  you.  The  field  which  lies  before 
you  speaks  for  itself  ;  no  words  of  mine  can  heighten  your  ap- 
prehension of  it.  Yet  you  feel  that  it  utterly  transcends  your 
estimate.      You  do  not  need  to  look  forward  to  some  future 


day  for  opportunities  of  service.  Every  day  will  bring  its 
opportunities,  and  the  only  relief  from  the  apprehension  of  a 
service  inadequate  to  the  occasion  you  will  find  in  the  divine 
promise,  "As  thy  days,  so  shall  thy  strength  be."  I  con- 
gratulate you  upon  such  relief  available  to  every  anxious  ser- 
vant of  the  Master.  I  congratulate  you  further  upon  the  fact 
that  you  will  find  chosen  helpers  on  every  side,  ready  to  co- 
operate with  you  in  the  great  work.  An  efficient  and  earnest 
board  of  trustees  will  gather  about  you,  men  of  wide  experi- 
ence in  their  various  callings,  and  of  profound  interest  in  the 
work  of  Christian  education  which  the  college  represents,  a 
large  proportion  of  them  educated  here,  and  coming  back, 
from  time  to  time,  with  the  interest  with  which  children 
return  to  the  home  of  their  youth.  The  unanimous  and 
hearty  call  extended  to  you  by  this  board,  the  source  of  all 
authority  in  the  college,  is  a  pledge  of  earnest  support  in  your 
administration  of  the  trust  committed  to  you.  Their  confi- 
dence and  co-operation  will  not  fail  you.  You  will  find 
yourself  surrounded  by  an  efficient  and  harmonious  and  self- 
denying  faculty,  untiring  in  their  efforts  to  make  our  common 
work  a  full  success  They  will  not  assume  that  you  have  been 
elected  to  bear  all  the  responsibility,  or  that  every  duty 
which  has  not  been  specifically  assigned  devolves  naturally 
upon  you.  They  will  accept  with  all  cheerfulness  and 
fidelity  their  share  of  the  common  burden,  and  will  rally  about 
you,  not  as  critics  but  as  helpers  in  the  common  administra- 
tion. This  has  been  the  attitude  of  the  Oberlin  faculty  for 
the  generation  past;  so  it  will  be  for  the  generation  to  come. 
I  congratulate  you  farther  upon  the  kindly  regard  and 
loyalty  of  the  thousands  of  students  who  shall  gather  here 
during  the  coming  years.  Such  earnest  and  loyal  hearts  have 
been  the  reliance  and  the  support  of  those  upon  whom  the 
burden  has  rested  in  the  years  that  are  past ;  they  will  con- 
tinue to  accept  their  share  of  responsibility  for  the  good  order 
and  the  good  name  of  the  college.  If  in  some  hour  of  youth- 
ful excitement  any  should  prove  forgetful — and  children  are 
sometimes  forgetful,  even  under  the  roof  that  shelters  them — 


you  may  still  appeal  to  their  sense  of  responsibility  andrh^ner, 
and  in  the  end  they  will  not  disappoint  your  confidence.  In 
such  a  body  of  well-disposed  and  responsive  young  people 
the  college  has  found  its  beauty  and  strength.  The  chief 
attractiveness  of  your  position  and  your  work  will  lie  in  the 
reasonableness  and  co-operation  of  this  college  community. 

I  congratulate  you  too  upon  the  support  you  will  find  in 
the  larger  community  which  surrounds  the  college.  No 
educational  institution  was  ever  more  favored  in  the  consid- 
erateness  and  helpfulness  of  the  community  in  the  midst  of 
which  it  was  placed.  No  line  of  separation  divides  between 
the  college  and  the  town,  but  citizens  and  studen-ts  and  faculty 
work  together  in  the  interests  of  good  order,  and  in  the  pro- 
motion of  every  good  work.  Upon  this  pattern  the  fathers 
built,  and  thus  the  colony  and  the  college  have  grown,  and 
thus  they  stand  to-day.  This  pleasant  relationship  will  lift 
from  your  shoulders  many  a  burden,  and  relieve  your  heart 
of  many  an  anxiety. 

Still  other  helpers  will  respond  to  your  call,  friends  and 
benefactors  of  the  college,  from  the  east  and  the  west,  who 
have  been  blessed  as  stewards  of  the  L^ord  with  more  than  ordi- 
nary means,  and  with  most  generous  hearts.  Such  friends  have 
arisen  in  every  emergency,  and  it  is  by  their  provision  that 
the  college  stands  to-day  with  the  buildings  and  other  equip- 
ments in  which  our  hearts  rejoice.  They  will  not  fail  you  in 
the  coming  years.  Under  all  these  favoring  conditions  you 
enter  upon  your  work,  and  on  these  conditions  I  am  per- 
mitted to  congratulate  you. 

You  will  pardon  a  personal  reflection  .  Twenty-five  years 
ago  I  stood  where  you  stand  to-day,  and  received  from  the 
venerable  Father  Keep  the  symbols  of  the  office  upon  which 
you  now  enter.  The  outlook  then  brought  some  misgiving 
and  apprehension  ;  to-day  brings  to  me  quiet  and  rest  and  a 
cheerful  retrospect.  I  congratulate  you  upon  the  expectation 
that  when  your  thirty  years  of  service  are  filled  out,  you  will 
find  the  work  upon  which  you  now  enter  a  good  one  to  retire 
from.       With  these  congratulations  I  transfer  to  you  the  seal 


and  charter  of  the  college,  and  we  invoke  upon  you  the  bless- 
ing of  God  before  whom  our  fathers  walked.  '  'The  Lord  bless 
thee  and  keep  thee ;  the  Lord  make  his  face  shine  upon  thee 
and  be  gracious  unto  thee;  the  Lord  lift  up  his  countenance 
upon  thee  and  give  thee  peace. " 


INAUGURAL  ADDRESS 


OF 


PRESIDENT  WILLIAM  G.  BALLANTINE 


Mr.  President,  Brethren  and  Friends:  To  receive 
from  yoii  by  the  hands  of  him  whom  we  all  venerate  for  his 
wisdom,  reverence  for  his  virtues,  and  love  for  the  greatness 
of  his  heart,  this  sacred  trust,  fills  me  with  conflicting  emo- 
tions, which  you  will  not  expect  me  to  put  into  words. 

For  more  than  half  a  century  the  tears,  the  prayers,  the 
gifts  and  the  labors  of  pious  men  and  women  have  been 
freely  given  to  build  up  here  an  institution  for  Christ  and 
for  His  church.  The  future  of  that  institution  is  to  be 
largely  affected  by  what  we  do  to-day. 

A  man  can  receive  nothing  except  it  be  given  him  from 
above.  I  should  not  dare  to  accept  this  high  responsibility, 
but  that  the  manner  in  which  you  offer  it  convmces  me  that 
it  is  the  will  of  God  whose  I  am  and  whom  I  serve.  But  so 
believing,  I  do  accept  it  with  deepest  joy  as  a  privilege  far 
beyond  any  ambition  I  ever  cherished;  and  relying  upon 
divine  help,  I  pledge  to  you  my  utmost  endeavors  and  the 
full  devotion  of  my  heart. 

You,  on  your  part,  by  the  solemn  ceremonies  of  this 
hour,  will  be  bound  to  bear  with  my  weaknesses  in  charity, 
and  to  give  to  the  college  in  the  future,  as  in  the  past,  that 
loyal  and  efficient  support  without  which  all  my  efforts 
will  be  in  vain. 

May  He,  without  whom  nothing  is  strong,  nothing  is  holy, 


10 

graciously  smile  upon   our  united  labors,  and  use  them   for 
the  upbuilding  of  his  kingdom. 

THE  AMERICAN  COLLEGE 

In  the  educational  vocabulary  of  America,  the  word 
"college"  is  the  one  word  of  magic  for  the  popular  imagina- 
tion. School,  institute,  academy,  seminary  and  university 
are  honored  names,  but  the  college  has  a  charm  all  its  own. 
It  differs  from  the  others,  not  in  degree  but  in  kind.  To  it 
attaches  "the  glory  that  was  Greece  and  the  grandeur  that 
was  Rome,"  It  gathers  into  itself  the  most  diverse  elements, 
and  yet  in  undeniable  unity.  The  gravity  of  learning  and 
the  ebullience  of  fun,  manhood's  strength  and  boyhood's 
ardor,  eloquence  and  nonsense,  friendship,  romance,  patriot- 
ism, heroism  and  religion — of  such  stuff  a  college  is  made. 
And  the  college  relation  is  permanent.  To  be  a  Harvard 
man,  or  a  Yale  marf,  or  an  Oberlin  man,  is  to  have  formed 
life-long  connections  in  a  fellowship  of  noble  minds.  The 
famous  class  of  1829  i^  Harvard  College  has  been  so  for- 
tunate as  to  have  in  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  a  poet  interpreter, 
able  every  year  to  put  into  a  new  song  the  inexhaustible 
suggestions  of  a  class  reunion  ;  but  those  songs  speak  the 
common  sentiments  of  the  hundreds  of  classes  in  our  hund- 
reds of  colleges.  It  is  simply  what  we  all  feel  in  meeting 
on  the  old  campus  to  talk  of — 

**  The  shining  days  when  life  was  new, 
And  all  was  bright  with  morning  dew, 
The  lusty  days  of  long  ago, 
When  you  were  Bill  and  I  was  Joe." 

Still  the  times  force  us  to  ask,  Has  the  American  college 
any  basis  in  the  constitution  and  needs  of  man,  and  in  the 
facts  of  his  environment,  or  is  it  an  accidental,  provincial 
and  temporary  product  of  the  evolution  of  education  in  this 
country?  Is  there  at  the  basis  of  it  any  single  conception, 
upon  which  numbers  of  thinking  people  can  permanently 
unite — a  conception  simple  enough  for  harmonious  embodi- 


11 

ment  and  fruitful  enough  for  perpetual  growth?  Is  there 
any  way  of  determining  what  a  college  ought  to  have  and 
ought  to  attempt,  any  standard  open  to  inspection  and  veri- 
fication by  which  we  may  ascertain  how  far  a  college  is 
accomplishing  its  function?     These  are  serious  questions. 

The  American  college  is  unique.  In  Germany,  the  most 
learned  land,  there  are  no  colleges.  There  youths  are  kept 
in  what  we  should  call  academies  until  they  are  overgrown 
boys,  and  then  they  are  sent  to  the  universities  when  they 
are  still  undeveloped  men.  Many  of  our  young  professors 
who  have  finished  their  educations  in  Germany  come  home 
largely  in  sympathy  with  this  system.  Between  the  pressure 
for  a  high  standard  for  entrance  to  college,  pressure  for 
promiscuous  election  among  studies  in  college,  and  pressure 
for  shortening  of  years  devoted  to  college,  will  anything  be 
left  of  the  old  institution,  and  will  not  the  education  of  the 
future  be  better  reached  through  other  agencies,  leaving,  the 
college,  like  the  Grecian  trireme,  only  a  picturesque  remi^ 
niscence  ? 

We  think  not.  We  do  not  think  that  the  university  will 
displace  the  college.  They  have  wholly  distinct  fields.  They 
differ  as  the  square  and  the  circle.  The  college  stands  for 
liberal  culture;  the  university  stands  for  special  learning. 
The  college,  while  fitting  men  for  the  university  and  sending 
them  to  the  university,  will  remain,  paradoxical  as  it  may 
sound  to  say  it,  supreme  and  ultimate — the  alma  maler  of  the 
man — the  most  interesting,  the  most  influential,  the  most 
loved  of  all  institutions.  For  in  the  conception  of  a  liberal 
education  which  the  college  embodies,  we  find  just  that  sim^ 
plicity,  dignity,  universality  and  fruitfulness  which  will 
insure  respect,  permanence,  harmony  and  growth. 

The  presence  of  the  college  in  America  and  its  absence  in 
Germany  are  not  accidental,  but  may  be  accounted  for  by 
the  fundamental  ideas  of  the  two  civilizations.  .  Antiquity 
fixed  its  eye  upon  the  tribe  or  state,  and  sought  nothing  for 
the  individual  but  a  useful  function.  Germany  still  feels  the 
influence  of  this.      America,  first  of  the  nations,    recognized 


12 

the  dignity  and  value,  the  rights  and  responsibilities  of  the 
individual.  Our  ideal  is  not  the  citizen,  but  the  man — a 
child  of  God,  made  in  the  image  of  God,  admirable  only 
when  he  can  say,  "O  God,  I  think  thy  thoughts  after  thee!" 
And  so  we  have  placed  first  the  institution  which  educates 
man  as  man. 

The  human  being  enters  the  world  most  helpless  of 
animals,  but  with  infinite  capacity  for  development.  Left 
to  himself,  he  remains  a  stupid  savage;  educated,  he  may 
become  a  Garfield  or  a  Gladstone.  Manifestly  there  is  a 
place  for  an  institution  which,  taking  him  while  still  in  the 
plasticity  of  boyhood,  shall  during  the  years  of  transition  to 
the  fixity  of  manhood,  call  forth  every  one  of  his  powers  into 
right  exercise  upon  its  proper  object  before  attention  is  con- 
centrated on  the  narrow  field  of  a  special  occupation.  And 
this  institution  is  the  college. 

An  American  college  is  the  embodiment  of  the  means  to 
a  liberal  education.  In  the  notion  of  a  liberal  education  we 
find  the  standard  of  what  is  essential  to  a  college.  Incident- 
ally the  college  may  offer  a  share  in  its  advantages  to  many 
who  are  not  seeking  liberal  culture,  but  all  of  its  arrange- 
ments should  be  primarily  for  the  ideal  youth,  the  young 
Garfield  or  the  young  Gladstone  who  seeks  spherical  develop- 
ment. Everything  that  belongs  to  complete  human  char- 
acter must  be  embraced  in  a  college,  for  the  college  monop- 
olizes the  youth  at  his  formative  period,  and  what  it  fails  to 
do  will  probably  be  forever  left  undone.  If  a  single  power 
is  left  undeveloped,  cramped,  atrophied,  the  man  fails  of 
perfect  manhood.  Whatever  is  revealed  by  an  analysis  of 
man's  nature  and  environment,  must  be  met  by  adequate 
provision  in  the  college. 

No  definition  of  a  college  less  inclusive  than  this  can  be 
defended;  no  grander  can  be  framed.  The  college  must 
attempt  all,  or  it  forfeits  the  right  to  attempt  anything.  The 
practical  value  of  our  definition  is  at  once  apparent  when  we 
advance  to  details.  Man  has  body  and  soul,  consequently 
the  college  must  provide  for  physical   training.     The  gym- 


13 

nasium  and  athletic  field  are  not  mere  attachments_to  a 
college,  but  an  integral  part.  Modern  psychology  dwells 
upon  the  intimate  union  of  soul  and  body,  and  justifies  the 
place  which  the  Greeks,  the  inventors  of  civilization,  gave 
to  gymnastics.  The  tremendous  enthusiasm  for  athletics 
which  characterizes  these  recent  years,  beneath  all  its 
gambling  and  extravagancies,  rests  on  profound  convic- 
tions, and  indicates  a  permanent  advance  of  the  American 
people.  Our  colleges  have  for  generations  held  up  the 
models  of  Greek  eloquence,  history  and  poetry  for  imitation; 
they  are  now  beginning  to  set  up  the  Greek  statues,  not 
merely  for  the  aesthetic  pleasure  of  contemplating  them,  but 
as  ideals  of  real  bodily  attainmcxit  by  American  youth.  It 
is  a  right  ambition  in  our  boys  not  only  to  speak  like  Apollo, 
but  to  have  also  the  form  and  presence  of  Apollo. 

The  soul  is  the  nobler  part  of  man,  and  to  its  culture 
most  of  the  time  of  education  must  be  given.  Of  its  three 
faculties — intellect,  sensibility  and  will — each  must  receive 
equal  care.  The  assumption  that  a  college  has  only,  or  at 
least  predominantly,  to  do  with  the  intellect,  though  wide- 
spread, is  wholly  unfounded.  Looking  at  the  complexity  of 
man  and  the  complexity  of  his  relations,  no  justification  can 
be  found  for  the  claim  that  he  should  devote  the  four  best 
years  of  youth  to  a  one-sided  development  simply  of  the  in- 
tellect. Art  culture  has  not  yet  its  proper  recognition  among 
us  as  an  indispensable  part  of  liberal  culture.  Since  the  day 
that  the  morning  stars  sang  together,  music  has  be^n  an 
essential  accompaniment  of  existence.  To  appreciate  it  de- 
mands far  more  than  technical  preparation;  it  demands  a 
noble  soul.  Technical  skill  in  art,  when  the  pure  emotions 
are  untrained,  can  only  be  turned  to  the  service  of  sensuality. 
It  was  the  capital  blunder  of  Puritanism  to  deny  the  rights 
of  man's  aesthetic  nature,  In  a  world  of  beauty — a  world 
where  every  grain  of  sand  is  a  crystal  and  every  dewdrop  a 
glittering  jewel;  a  world  of  flowers  and  stars,  of  leaping  cata- 
racts and  snowy  summits,  where  the  gorgeousness  of  day 
perpetually  alternates  with  the  magnificence  of  night;  a  world 


14 

where  the  Madonna  and  the  Christ-child  are  but  types  of 
womanly  and  infantine  grace  which  every  man  worships  in 
some  living  embodiments, — in  this  world  Puritanism  resolved 
to  shut  its  eyes  to  the  value  of  beauty.  The  descendants  of 
the  Puritans  have  not  yet  fully  escaped  from  that  blindness. 

The  imperial  part  of  man  is  his  will.  This  is  the  citadel 
of  his  being.  The  education  of  the  will — the  complete  sub- 
jugation of  it  to  conscience — is  therefore  the  supreme  concern 
of  the  college.  It  is  the  most  difficult  part,  but  the  most 
necessary  part  of  the  work.  A  college  should  be  above  all  a 
place  of  piety;  for  conscience  cannot  grow  refined  in  an  at- 
mosphere of  levity,  but  only  in  an  atmosphere  of  prayer. 

All  agree  that  a  college  must  train  the  intellect,  and  some 
attempt  little  beyond.  This  part  of  the  work  is  everywhere 
in  the  foreground.  The  other  disciplines,  whether  more  or 
less  important,  are  grouped  around  this  as  a  framework,  and 
by  it  students  are  classified.  Let  us  apply  our  definition  of 
a  liberal  education  in  answer  to  the  question.  What  studies 
should  enter  into  the  college  course.  A  liberal  education, 
we  have  seen,  opens  the  view  toward  all  thirty-two  points  of 
the  compass.  It  renders  the  soul  intelligent  in  respect  to  its 
whole  environment.  It  must  deal  with  the  constitution  and 
laws  of  matter  and  of  mind,  with  the  structure  of  the  earth 
and  of  the  stars,  with  the  inorganic  and  the  organic  king- 
doms, with  the  nature  of  man  and  of  God,  with  the  individ- 
ual and  society,  with  the  past  and  the  present,  with  language 
and  literature,  which  are  the  vehicle  of  thought  interchange. 
Attention,  memory,  judgment,  and  all  the  intellectual 
powers,  must  be  trained  to  act  in  all  these  spheres,  and  such 
a  beginning  must  be  made  in  knowledge  of  essential  facts 
and  fundamental  principles  as  shall  enable  the  mind  to 
deal  with  whatever  materials  for  thought  life  may  bring. 
Nothing  must  be  omitted.  Sphericity  is  the  specific  mark 
of  a  liberal  education.  It  is  a  fallacy  to  assume  that  disci- 
pline in  a  few  departments  will  qualify  for  thought  in  untried 
fields.  It  never  will  be  possible  to  make  a  man  so  profound 
a  theologian    that   he  will    be    able  to   form   an    intelligent 


15 

judgment  of  Darwinism,  or  so  skillful  a  comparative  anato- 
mist that  he  will  be  a  competent  critic  of  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis.  An  unexpected  light  here  falls  upon  the  vexed 
question  of  elective  studies.  It  may  be  wise  for  a  college  to 
allow  wide  liberty  in  the  choice  of  studies,  since  a  large  per- 
centage of  mankind  must,  for  various  reasons,  accept  an 
education  somewhat  less  than  liberal.  But  our  ideal  youth 
must  be  informed  that  he  cannot  omit  athletics,  or  mathe- 
matics, or  chemistry,  or  physics,  or  botany,  or  zoology,  or 
geology,  or  astronomy,  or  languages,  or  rhetoric,  or  logic,  or 
psychology,  or  social  and  political  science,  or  history,  or 
ethics,  or  theology,  or  music,  or  art.  His  range  of  electives 
must  be  within  very  narrow  limits.  If  a  single  main  subject 
is  omitted,  the  sphere  is  incomplete  and  the  education  defec- 
tive. Individual  taste  can  claim  little  regard  when  generic 
symmetry  is  sought. 

College  training,  with  this  vast  array  of  subjects,  differs 
from  university  training  in  that  it  nowhere  aims  to  be  ex- 
haustive; but  seeks  only  so  much  of  detail  as  may  be  neces- 
sary to  the  mastery  of  fundamental  principles.  Yet  it  can- 
not afford  to  be  superficial.  The  work  of  a  college  must  be 
as  genuine  as  that  of  a  university.  It  must  have  the  same 
flavor  of  modesty  and  reality.  While  necessarily  it  must 
aim  to  impart  information  regarding  what  is  known,  and 
thus  cannot  escape  being  somewhat  didactic,  it  must,  above 
all  things,  inculcate  the  methods  and  spirit  of  original  search 
for  truth.  The  true  college  professor  does  not  assume  omni- 
science, but  as  an  older  investigator  simply  explains,  illus- 
trates and  justifies  the  processes  of  discovery,  and  exhibits 
the  present  state  of  knowledge  in  his  field.  Fruitful  origi- 
nal work  will  be  expected  from  under-graduates,  throughout 
their  course,  under  any  right  system. 

The  objection  is  obvious  that  what  we  are  saying 
amounts  to  a  claim  that  universal  knowledge  is  necessary  to 
a  liberal  education,  and  that  the  brevity  of  life  and  the  vast- 
ness  of  art  have  been  overlooked.  But  a  fundamental  know- 
ledge in  most    of  these   departments   is  already   gained   by 


16 

many.  Although  new  branches  of  science  are  constantly 
born,  and  the  buried  past  of  Assyria,  Egypt  and  Greece  is 
rising  from  the  dust,  and  thus  both  the  cradle  and  the  grave 
are  being  robbed  to  furnish  new  electives,  our  improvments 
in  methods  of  education  outstrip  in  growth  the  empire  of 
knowledge,  just  as  our  railroads  enable  President  Harrison 
to-day  to  traverse  the  Union  of  forty-four  states  with  a  speed 
and  comfort  that  Washington  and  Jefferson  never  realized 
within  the  meager  area  of  the  original  thirteen. 

Man  is  a  social  animal.  Before  creation  was  complete, 
the  principle  was  asserted  that  it  is  not  good  that  man  should 
be  alone.  Society  consists  of  men  and  women.  It  never 
can  be  lifted  above  its  conceptions  of  the  normal  relations  of 
men  and  women.  In  Africa  woman  is  man's  slave;  in 
Turkey  she  is  his  plaything;  in  America  she  is,  theoretically 
at  least,  his  companion. 

"The  woman's  cause  is  man's;  they  rise  or  sink 
Together  dwarfed  or  godlike,  bond  or  free." 
Only  together  can — 

*'  He  gain  in  sweetness  and  in  moral  height, 
Nor  lose  the  wrestling  thews  Ihat  throw  the  world; 
She  mental  breadth,  nor  fail  in  childward  care. 
Nor  lose  the  childlike  in  the  larger  mind; 
Till  at  last  she  set  herself  to  man, 
Like  perfect  music  unto  noble  words." 
A  liberal  education  will  therefore  be  co-education.      Who 
can  believe  that  it  is  the  final  achievement  of  educational 
science  to  gather  young  men  to  room  in  great   barrack-like 
dormitories  and  to  feed  by  themselves  in  vast  halls,  however 
splendid  in  architecture,  and  to  study  the  universe  apart  from 
those  who  are  to  be  their  companions  in   dealing  with  the 
problems  of  the  universe?     A  barrack  life  will  have  a  bar- 
rack-room flavor.     A  world  of  one  sex  is  as  bad  as  a  world  of 
one     color — a    dull,     wearisome,     unwholesome,    monstrous 
world;  a  world  in  whose  morbid  atmosphere  rank  growths 
spring  up  like  weeds.      How  to  understand  and   appreciate 
and  treat  the  other  sex,  is  too  large  a  part  of  life  to  be  omit- 
ted from  the  golden  four  years  of  college. 

A  liberal  education  must  be  the  education  of  a  freeman. 


17 
It  must  emphasize  the  rights  and  still  more  the  duties  of 
each  man  as  a  citizen.  A  trained  habit  of  intelligent  inter- 
est in  national  affairs,  in  the  workings  of  government  in  co- 
temporary  politics  and  in  all  matters  of  public  concern,  even 
down  to  the  council  and  constables  of  the  college  town,  is 
essential.  A  sense  of  personal  responsibility  must  be  evoked. 
The  old  notion  that  students  were  more  than  others  free 
from  obligations  to  law  and  in  possession  of  a  special  fran- 
chise for  disorder,  noise  and  petty  depredations,  was  treason 
to  the  very  purpose  of  their  schooling.  Nothing  is  so  illib- 
eral as  lawbreaking.  Sin  is  always  slavery.  Contempt  for 
the  established  rules  of  society  is  barbarism. 

The  wickedly  absurd  doctrine  of  college  honor  which 
teaches  that  a  student  owes  his  first  duty,  not  to  the  institu- 
tion whose  bounty  he  enjoys,  not  to  the  instructors,  also,  who, 
with  parental  affection,  labor  for  his  success,  not  to  the 
friendly  community  around  him,  but  to  some  scapegrace 
whose  irregularities  frustrate  hope  and  blot  the  fair  fame  of 
the  college,  and  that  this  duty  is  rather  to  conceal  than  to 
correct  wrong,  has  no  place  in  a  liberal  education.  Education 
will  be  no  preparation  for  real  life  unless  young  men  from 
their  hearts  begin  to  practice  in  college  the  same  principles 
which  rule  good  citizens  outside. 

In  training  for  civic  duty  in  a  free  republic  the  old- 
fashioned  debating  society,  closely  modelled  upon  Congress 
and  our  state  legislatures,  is  an  invaluable  contrivance  now 
too  generally  fallen  into  neglect.  Secret  societies  of  course 
must  be  excluded  from  our  ideal  college,  for  secrecy  has  no 
legitimate  place  in  wholesome  civil  life.  Good  works  need 
no  concealment ;  evil  practices  should  not  be  allowed  to  enjoy 
its  shield. 

Nature,  which  everywhere  presents  unity  and  variety,  has 
made  no  exception  of  the  human  race.  We  say  "the  human 
race^^^  but  also  with  equal  propriety  "the  races  of  men. " 
Where  prejudice  struggles  for  provincial  sameness,  our 
Creator  has  provided  for  cosmopolitan  diversity.  Not  many 
have  been  so  liberalized  by  their  education  that  they  cordially 


18 

fraternize  with  all  the  world,  and  can  say  with  the  grand 
Roman:  ^^Honio  sum:  humaiii  nihil  a  me  alienum  piitoy 
Race  prejudice  is  soul  narrowness.  It  belittles  the  world  and 
the  Maker  of  the  world.  Education  should  lift  one  up  to 
that  high  plane  upon  which  the  noblest  of  every  race  meet 
in  mutual  recognition,  and  rejoice  in  the  variety  of  types  as 
an  enrichment  of  civilization.  The  liberality  of  world-wide 
sympathy  will  be  best  secured  in  a  cosmopolitan  institution, 
where  men  and  women  of  many  lands  and  races  meet  in 
sufficient  numbers  to  require  the  practical  exercise  of  this 
high  magnanimity. 

Freedom  entered  this  world  first  in  the  person  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Unless  the  Son  makes  us  free,  we  are  the  bond 
slaves  of  Satan.  There  can  be  no  liberal  education  of  one 
who  in  heart  is  slave.  An  Edgar  A.  Poe  may  be  exquisitely 
sensitive  to  the  music  of  verse,  delicately  skillful  in  word 
painting,  but  selfish,  shameless,  drunken,  he  was  not  liber- 
ally educated.  In  God  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being. 
To  study  the  universe  without  knowing  him  who  is  immanent 
in  it,  to  study  man  without  knowing  the  one  perfect  man,  to 
read  history  without  the  divine  key  to  the  philosophy  of 
history,  is  to  waste  effort.  The  college  of  liberal  arts  must 
be  saturated  with  religion.  'J'he  student's  conversion 
should  stand  first  in  the  solicitude  of  his  teachers.  For  how 
shall  he  who  loves  darkness  rather  than  light  seek  'truth  ? 

The  proposition  to  leave  religion  out  of  a  liberal  educa- 
tion is  more  monstrous  than  would  be  the  proposition  to  leave 
out  natural  science.  It  is  assumed  by  many  nowadays  that  a 
great  school  or  a  great  teacher  should  have  no  avowed  con- 
victions. All  sides  should  be  presented  with  equal  candor 
and  equal  indifference,  and  the  student  left  to  choose.  But 
this  is  to  educate  the  student  to  regard  indifference  as  mature 
and  wise.  The  object  of  education  is  to  train  in  practical 
life,  which  includes  always  investigation,  decision  and  action. 
A  learned  man  without  courage  in  confession,  decision  in 
action,  and  enthusiasm  in  defence  of  truth  is  utterly  unfit  for 
a  teacher  of  youth,  for  he  misrepresents  the  very  purpose  of 


19 

education.  He  is  not  educated  who  does  not  have  it  wrought 
into  him  that  always  the  knowledge  of  truth,  or  even  the  pre- 
ponderance of  evidence,  brings  immediate  obligation  to  decide 
and  to  act. 

In  this  fair  college  town  of  Oberlin  we  have  a  preparatory- 
school,  a  college,  and  in  theology,  music,  and  at  last  in 
philosophy,  genuine  university  work.  Bach  of  these  great 
departments  is  essential  in  our  educational  scheme,  and  each 
is  regarded  with  pardonable  pride.  All  see  the  importance 
of  cherishing  both  the  academy  and  the  university.  But  the 
college  is  the  center.  It  is  here  that  the  Oberlin  man  and 
the  Oberlin  woman  pai^  excellence  are  disciplined  for  life. 
Our  survey  of  what  a  college  should  be,  based  upon  an 
exhaustive  analysis  of  man's  nature  and  environment,  leads 
to  the  gratifying  recognition  of  the  fact  that  partly  the  wisdom 
of  our  predecessors,  but  much  more  largely  the  extraordinary 
favors  of  divine  Providence,  have  supplied  already  here  in 
remarkable  degree  every  essential  condition  of  liberal  educa- 
tion. With  religious  reverence  we  receive  this  precious  trust, 
not  to  revolutionize  it,  but  assiduously  to  labor  that  every 
part'of  the  grand  work  may  be  brought  nearer  to  perfection. 

Our  ideal  is  a  sublime  one,  but  for  that  very  reason  it 
enlists  the  services  of  all  our  energies.  It  is  the  hope  of 
Oberlin  College  to  send  forth  each  year  a  band  of  young  men 
and  women  in  physical  strength  and  beauty,  initiated  into 
every  department  of  thought,  familiar  with  the  laws  and 
history  of  matter  and  of  mind,  acquainted  with  the  greatest 
men  and  the  best  literature  of  all  time,  trained  in  the  pursuit 
and  love  of  truth,  in  sympathy  with  the  whole  human  race, 
socially  genial,  politically  free,  morally  sensitive,  courageously 
firm  in  duty,  alive  to  beauty,  responsive  to  music,  loyal  to 
God, — in  a  word,  liberally  educated.  In  this  purpose  the  col- 
lege finds  the  justification  of  its  existence  and  the  law  of  its 
growth. 


ADDRESS  OF  R.  A.  MILLIKAN 

REPRESENTATIVE  OF  THE  STUDENTS 


To-day,  on  such  an  occasion  as  has  not  been  seen  for  two 
and  a  half  decades,  such  an  occasion  as,  please  God,  may  not 
be  seen  for  two  and  a  half  more,  my  feeble  voice  mast  first 
speak  the  ringing  welcome  of  seventeen  hundred  students  to 
their  new  president. 

And  I  am  proud  to  represent  the  students.  For  five  years 
I  have  been  a  student,  and  although  we  received  our  degrees 
yesterday,  I  am  glad  to  appear  to-day  as  still  a  student.  It  is 
true,  and  the  students  realize  the  fact,  that  upon  them  de- 
pends, in  a  very  large  degree,  the  prosperity  of  their  institu- 
tution.  The  enthusiasm,  or  lack  of  it,  which  they  show,  the 
reports,  favorable  or  unfavorable,  which  they  scatter  broad- 
cast over  every  state  and  every  territory  in  the  Union,  are 
the  one  great  advertising  agency,  the  one  great  potent  power 
to  bless  or  blight. 

But  whether  I  take  my  place  to-day  as  a  student  or  an 
alumnus,  or  as  a  kind  of  connecting  link  between  the  two — 
a  sort  of  pollywog  which  has  got  his  legs  but  hasn't  lost  his 
tail,  and  is  somewhat  loath  to  part  with  what  has  meant  so 
much  to  him — I  know  that  I  have  been  long  enough  with  the 
students  to  feel  as  the  students  feel;  and  I  know  that  any 
words  which  I  may  utter  of  hope  for,  or  attachment  to,  or 
confidence  in  their  college  and  their  president,  will  be  but  a 
feeble  echo  of  the  hope  and  confidence  and  love  which  the 
great  body  of  students  cherish. 

Two  years  ago,  when  that  grand  old  man,  who  was  nearer 


21 

and  dearer  to  the  student  heart  than  it  seemed  that  any  other 
could  be,  tendered  his  resignation  of  office,  there  were  none 
who  heard  it  with  deeper  sorrow  than  did  we  students;  and 
during  the  year  and  a  half  which  intervened  between  that 
time  and  the  choice  of  a  new  executive,  there  were  none  who 
waited  with  deeper  solicitude  or  watched  with  keener  interest 
to  catch  the  first  glimpse  of  him  whom  God  had  provided  to 
be  the  leader  of  Oberlin's  onward  march,  than  did  we  stu- 
dents. And  when  He  who  sees  not  as  man  sees,  said,  in  His 
Providence,  I  have  not  chosen  this  one  or  that,  but  pointed 
out  as  the  David  who  was  to  be  the  leader  of  this  chosen  col- 
lege, a  man  from  our  own  faculty,  a  man  whom  every  student 
in  the  institution  knew  as  a  profound  scholar,  a  brilliant 
writer,  a  practical,  able  and  tried  executive,  and  above  all  a 
Christian  gentleman,  it  was  we — not  the  trustees,  not  the 
alumni,  not  the  faculty — who  raised  ringing,  heartfelt  cheers 
for  William  Gay  Ballantine,  president  of  the  new  Oberlin. 
This  was  not  simply  because  we  had  confidence  in  the  wisdom 
and  judgment  of  those  who  made  the  selection — the  trustees 
and  faculty — but  because  we  knew  and  trusted  in  the  man. 
And  those  thunders  of  applause,  such  as  the  old  chapel  never 
heard,  which  broke  from  the  lips  of  fifteen  hundred  students 
on  the  first  evening  when  President  Ballantine  took  his  seat 
in  his  new  capacity,  shall  be  a  perpetual  guarantee  to  him  of 
the  enthusiastic  support  of  the  great  body  of  students  in  his 
every  effort  to  further  the  interests  of  the  college  and  to 
widen  its  sphereof  usefulness. 

The  hopes  and  the  expectations  ot  the  students  for  their 
college  are  indeed  great.  We  believe  that  as  an  institution 
we  stand  upon  the  threshold  of  a  new  era;  that  the  new  ad- 
ministration has  possibilities  before  it  which  its  predecessors 
never  saw ;  and  in  the  name  of  all  the  students  I  congratulate 
you.  President  Ballantine,  upon  the  greatness  of  opportunity 
and  of  responsibility  which  the  Almighty  Ruler  has  put  upon 
the  man  who  is  to  lead  Oberlin  College  across  the  boundary 
of  the  twentieth  century.  But  I  am  not  here  simply  to  con- 
gratulate you.      I  am  here  to  assure  you  that  the  students  are 


22 

eager  to  co-operate  with  you,  eager  to  follow  you  as  Napo- 
leon's soldiers  followed  him,  because  they  believe  in  you  as  a 
man  qualified  by  your  education,  your  abilities  and  by  your 
Christian  faith  to  lead  in  the  great  changes  which  are  taking 
place,  and  which  we  believe  are  to  continue  to  take  place  in 
our  chosen  institution.  We  have  rejoiced  as  we  have  watched 
with  intense  interest  the  changes  of  the  last  five  years.  We 
have  rejoiced  at  the  broadening  of  the  courses  of  study,  at 
the  increased  requirements  of  candidates  for  degrees,  at  the 
growth  of  the  scientific  department,  at  the  infusion  of  new 
and  vigorous  blood  from  other  institutions;  and  now  as  young 
men  we  rejoice  that  a  young  man,  with  the  best  years  and 
best  energies  of  life  before  him,  is  called  to  direct  these 
changes.  We  have  no  idle  regrets  to  offer  because  Oberlin 
is  changing.  We  live  in  different  times  and  under  other  cir- 
cumstances than  did  those  true  men,  the  Oberlin  pioneers, 
and  the  men  who  took  upon  their  shoulders  the  burdens  they 
laid  down.  We  would  imitate  them  in  all  that  made  them 
great,  in  their  sincerity;  but  we  cannot,  if  we  would,  imitate 
them  in  all  their  ways  and  methods.  The  methods  of  the 
past  are  not  the  methods  of  the  present: 

"New  occasions  teach  new  duties, 
Time  makes  ancient  good  uncouih; 
He  must  upward  still  and  onward, 
Who  would  keep  abreast  of  truth." 

If  we,  in  the  different  days  we  live  in  and  the  different 
paths  we  follow  are  but  as  earnest,  as  sincere  men  as  they 
were,  if  our  actions  square  as  well  with  our  convictions  as 
theirs  did,  we  shall  be  their  worthy  imitators,  and  as  worthy 
as  are  they  of  the  honor  and  the  reverence  of  the  generations 
which  follow  after.  Under  the  new  administration  we  look 
for  a  still  further  enlargement  of  endowment,  broadening  of 
the  courses  of  study,  increase  of  attendance  and  for  university 
facilities;  but  with  all  this  change  which  we  rejoice  in,  we 
hope  and  pray  and  believe  that  the  time  will  never  come  when 
Oberlin  shall  fail  to  teach  that  character,  Christian  character, 
is  the  prime  requisite  for  usefulness  in  life  and  the  prime  end 
of  education. 


-  TIE 


23 

And  so,  President  Bailantine,  as  their  privileged  representa- 
tive, I  extend  to  you  the  enthusiastic  welcome  of  seventeen, 
hundred  student  hearts  to  this  honor  and  to  this  responsibility. 
We  shall  pray  continually  that  God  may  bless  you  in  your  great 
work;  that  he  may  bless  the  faculty,  who  are  to  stay  your 
hands;  that  he  may  provide  true,  noble  men  to  fill  the  chairs 
which  are  continually  being  added,  and  when  such  great- 
souled  men  as  he  who  resigns  this  year,  he  who  has  made 
himself  loved  by  every  student  in  the  institution,  and  who, 
along  with  the  political  sciences,  has  taught  us  more  of  pure 
and  true  benevolence  than  books  can  ever  teach, — when  such 
men  take  their  shoulders  from  the  wheel,  we  pray  that  He 
may  provide  as  true,  as  noble  and  as  able  men  to  fill  their 
vacant  chairs.  And  may  your  whole  administration  be  pros- 
pered with  the  prosperity  which  is  of  Him — not  of  the  world. 
And  as  this  great  institution  whose  helmsman  you  are  hence- 
forth to  be  starts  out  again  upon  its  beneficent  voyage,  the 
great  chorus  of  student  voices  rings  out  after  it: 

"  Sail  on.  nor  fear  to  breast  the  sea, 
Our  hearts,  our  hopes  are  all  with  thee; 
Our  hearts,  our  hopes,  our  prayers,  our  tears. 
Our  faith,  triumphant  o'er  our  fears, 
Are  all  with  thee,  are  all  with  thee." 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  DAN  F.  BRADLEY 

REPRESENTATIVE  OF  THE  COLLEGE    ALUMNI   * 


My  only  justification  for  speaking,  at  this  time  and  under 
these  circumstances,  is  that  I  have  learned  here  in  Oberlin 
to  obey  orders  whenever  these  men  command.  And  yet 
what  alumus  would  not  be  glad  to  stand  here,  and  speak  his 
gratitude  and  his  love  for  alma  mater?  It  is  with  a  profound 
sense  of  gratitude  that  we  return  to  Oberlin,  and  note  the  pro- 
gress made  here  in  the  years  that  have  passed  since  we  went 
forth.  We  note  progress  everywhere;  in  the  campus,  and  in 
the  buildings.  It  is  a  better  glee  club,  and  a  better  musical 
union  than  we  used  to  have.  This  college  yell,  developed  in 
its  bilateral  and  radial  symmetry,  existed  in  rudimentary  form 
only,  in  our  day ;  and  the  Commencement  Annual  of  crude 
make-up  has  become  a  beautiful  volume.  There  is  progress 
everywhere,  not  to  say  anything  of  base-ball,  which  might 
involve  me  in  the  sphere  of  apologetics.  The  alumnus  is 
impressed  with  the  fact  that  there  are  four  great  schools  here: 
a  school  of  music  that  has  no  superior  in  the  land;  a  school 
of  divinity,  where  graduates  stand  equal  to  any;  a  preparatory 
school  inferior  to  none;  and  the  college,  center  and  chief  of 
all.  In  all  these  departments  there  has  been  vast  progress, 
and  the  alumnus  is  grateful  that  this  progress  has  come  so 
naturally;  that  the  changes  of  administration  have  come 
without  revolution,  and,  above  all,  the  mantle  of  Elijah  has 
fallen  upon  Elisha,  and  yet  the  fiery  chariots  have  not  come. 
May  they  long  be  delayed.  There  is  a  significance  here  that 
is  reassuring.      The  old  Oberlin  still  lives  and  will  live,  and 


25 

the  inaugural  address  we  have  heard  assures  us  that  the -eld 
is  to  be  perpetuated  in  the  new. 

Some  man  has  said  that  he  would  rather  be  President  of 
Oberlin  College  than  President  of  the  United  States.  Surely 
he  who  is  to  occupy  the  seat  of  Fairchild,  Finney  and  Mahan 
may  well  be  proud  of  the  honor.  I  congratulate  you,  sir, 
that  this  is  to  be  your  privilege.  May  God  bless  you,  and 
bless  Oberlin  College. 

*  Hon.  T.  B  Burton,  representative  of  the  College  Alumni,  was  pre- 
vented by  sickness  from  appearing,  and  Mr.  Bradley's  remarks  were 
extempore. 


ADDRESS  OF  MRS.  MARTHA  C.  KINCAID 

REPRESENTATIVE  OF  THE  COLLEGE   ALUMNyt. 


Dear  Friends  :  After  seven  years  of  absence  I  come 
back  to  Oberlin  to-day  with  thankfulness  and  pleasure.  In 
the  changes  which  have  come  through  your  new  and  beauti- 
ful buildings,  I  rejoice.  Seeing  is  believing.  I  find  myself 
feeling  much  as  the  queen  of  Sheba  did  at  the  court  of  king 
Solomon.  '  'And  she  said  to  the  king,  It  was  a  true  report 
that  I  heard  in  mine  own  land.  Howbeit,  I  believed  not  the 
words  until  I  came,  and  mineeyes  had  seen  :  and  behold  the 
half  was  not  told  me." 

It  is  because  I  believe  in  Oberlin  that  I  rejoice  to  speak 
to-day  for  the  twelve  hundred  women  who  have  gone  out  as 
alumnae  from  this  place.  Dear  Oberlin,  we  are  your  loyal, 
loving  daughters.  We  love  you,  not  simply  with  the  old 
child  love,  because  you  are  our  mother,  but  because,  with 
our  older  eyes,  we  still  see  in  you  that  which  we  can  respect 
and  follow.  With  all  these  added  charms  which  age  has 
brought,  we  do  not  want  our  mother  to  change  too  much. 
We  are  glad  to-day  she  has  this  pretty  gown  of  grass  and 
foliage,  and  these  beautiful  buildings — the  pearls  sent  by 
loving  hands — but  we  want  her  to  be  the  same  brave  mother 
still. 

In  all  the  shifting,  puzzling  questions  of  our  modern  life 
we  trust  Oberlin  to  speak,  as  of  old,  with  no  uncertain  sound. 
Is  it  right  ?  Will  God  be  honored  ?  Will  it  be  for  the  good 
of  all  ? 

We  trust  her  as  of  old,  to  take  her  stand  on  the  impreg- 


nable  rock  of  the  Holy  Scriptures.  We  trust  her  to  Teach 
the  word  of  God.  Not  what  it  is  not,  but  what  it  is,  and 
what  it  says.  Positive  truths,  surface  truths.  We  are 
' 'children  groping  in  the  night,  children  crying  for  the  light. " 
Nothing  but  this  word  let  down  from  above  will  help  us. 
Oh  Oberlin,  honor  the  word,  and  give  as  of  old  its  message 
to  the  world  ! 

We  trust  more  than  all  else  that  the  young  people  coming 
here  may  find  the  same  old  atmosphere  of  consecration  and 
devotion.  God  first,  not  in  word  only  but  in  fact,  in  the 
hearts  of  this  people.  They  will  need  of  Oberlin  nothing  so 
much  as  this  to  emphasize  the  Christian  training  they  have 
already  received,  or  to  lift  them  above  the  clouds  of  doubt  or 
worldliness  which  have  encircled  them. 

We  trust  Oberlin  may  never  build  too  many  dormitories, 
to  make  it  other  than  a  home  for  its  students;  that  the  time 
may  never  come  when  the  students,  the  college  and  the 
town  are  less  one  in  heart,  and  work,  and  aim,  than  now. 

We  trust  Oberlin  will  never  change  its  old  time  care  of 
its  girls  and  boys.  We  would  not  have  Oberlin  grow  more 
lynx-eyed,  and  hedge  in  the  students  with  exact,  circum- 
stantial and  irritating  rules.  We  trust,  however,  that  Oberlin 
will  keep  to  its  old  ways,  and  remember  that  law  is  useful, 
that  we  never  grow  too  old  to  be  under  restraint,  or  to  have 
our  time,  our  habits  or  our  life  guarded  with  the  loving 
"Thou  shalt  not."  We  trust  Oberlin' s  faculty  still  to  fit 
its  courses  of  study  for  drawing  out,  not  for  cramming;  for 
making  culture  the  stepping  stone,  not  the  aim;  and  above 
all  for  training  its  students  for  active  useful  service  in  the 
world. 

After  all,  however,  we  the  alumnae  feel  that  Oberlin  is 
Oberlin,  has  been  Oberlin,  and  will  be  Oberlin,  not  because 
of  its  theories  and  aims  simply,  but  because  of  its  men. 
Because  it  has  had  President  Mahan,  President  Finney,  Pres- 
ident Fairchild,  and  will  have  President  Ballantine.  The 
first  of  these  I  knew  only  through  my  father  but;  mother 
and  he  were  engaged  in  the   president's  front  parlor,   so  my 


28 

sources  of  information  are  not  so  remote  after  all.  Who 
could  have  been  better  fitted  than  President  Mahan,  by  his 
clear,  keen  reasonings,  to  gather  about  the  young  college  in 
the  woods  the  early  students — young  men  of  age,  experience, 
thought  and  consecration?  May  Oberlin  never  lose  the 
stamp  left  by  these,  its  earliest  men. 

God  sent  us  President  Finney,  a  man  of  the  century. 
How  much  we  then  admired  him.  How  much  we  now  love 
him.  Panoplied  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  swaying  the  multitudes 
by  his  logic,  bringing  thousands  to  the  Saviour;  punctilious  in 
his  dress,  a  gentleman  in  his  bearing,  beautifully  ripening  in 
his  old  age  before  our  eyes,  and  dying  among  us,  his  grave 
is  with  us  unto  this  day.     Thank  God  for  President  Finney. 

Days  of  upheaval  and  unrest  which  always  follow  a  great 
civil  war,  were  coming  on.  We  needed  a  clear  head,  a 
balanced  judgment  and  a  wise  heart,  and  President  Fairchild 
was  here.  Dear  President  Fairchild,  we  the  alumni,  the 
sons  and  daughters  of  Oberlin,  love  you.  You  have  steadied 
us,  guided  us,  helped  us  in  these  years.  Your  words  are  in 
our  hearts,  your  face  looks  down  from  our  walls,  and  your 
spirit,  we  trust,  will  more  and  more  dominate  our  lives.  If 
in  the  faintest  manner  our  lives  may  influence  others, 
as  yours  has  influenced  ours,  we  are  content. 

When  word  came  through  the  morning  papers,  to  our 
various  homes,  that  you.  President  Ballantine,  were  chosen 
our  leader,  our  hearts  said,  surely  God  is  still  in  the  counsels  of 
his  people.  We  trust  you  and  welcome  you,  as  a  comrade 
beloved.  We  are  ready  to  trust  even  our  beloved  Oberlin  in 
your  hands,  sure  that,  as  in  you  lies,  you  will  keep  it,  the 
Oberlin  of  our  love.  That  while  it  grows  and  expands,  it 
will  still  be  true  to  its  early  aims,  and  will  still  be  Oberlin, 
not  Harvard,  or  Columbia,  or  Cornell,  or  Yale,  or  Smith,  or 
Wellesley,  or  Vassar,  but  simply  Oberlin. 


ADDRESS  OF  REV.  B.  A.  IMES 

REPRESENTATIVE  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  ALUMNI 


When  "Cincinnati  Hall"  was  reared  up  like  a  tabernacle 
in  the  wilderness,  it  was  remarkable  for  two  things — the 
commonness  of  its  architecture,  and  the  uncommonness  of  its 
inhabitants — that  first  class  in  the  Oberlin  Theological  Semi- 
nary. I  need  not  dwell  upon  the  reason  for  their  coming 
hither.  A  peculiar  spell  was  upon  their  minds.  Indeed  the 
times  were  calling  for  men,  such  as  Paul  exhorts  Timothy 
to  seek  out — "The  things  which  thou  hast  heard  and  learned 
of  me,  the  same  commit  thou  to  faithful  men  who  shall  be 
able  to  teach  others  also. ' '  Again  he  says,  *  'hold  fast  the  form 
of  sound  words."  Bringing  the  two  ideas  together,  we  have 
for  our  theme — "Faithful  Men  and  Sound  Words." 

The  call  and  choice  of  the  first  President  of  Oberlin  Col- 
lege was  no  doubt  guided  and  inspired  by  the  same  spirit  that 
had  aroused  the  consciences,  and  poured  light  into  the  souls 
of  the  Lane  Seminary  students.  To  do  her  best  for  such 
pupils,  the  names  of  Asa  Mahan  and  John  Morgan  must  grace 
the  roll  of  Oberlin's  leading  instructors;  the  former  ?s  Presi- 
dent. The  evangelist  Finney  must  become  Professor  of 
Theology,  the  action  of  the  trustees,  in  reference  to  him, 
having  been  decided,  against  many  misgivings,  in  favor  of  a 
high  moral  principle,  and  in  the  fear  of  God,  rather  than  of 
man.  Oberlin  in  that  crisis  was  unconsciously  laying  deep 
and  well  a  foundation  which  is  ever  the  open  secret  of  her 
power  for  good.  A  child  attempted — not  in  vain — a  giant's 
task. 


30 

There  is  something  wonderful  in  that  eargerness  of  rea- 
soning— that  devoutness  of  praying,  whereby  the  teacher  and 
the  student  sought  out  the  deep  and  most  vital  things  of  the 
word  of  God  "That  which  the  Holy  Ghost  teacheth,  com- 
paring spiritual  things  with  spiritual."  We  need  not  pity 
them  now,  that  speaking  and  acting  out  their  strong  con- 
victions they  brought  down  scorn  and  even  malice  upon 
their  devoted  heads.  We  rather  call  them  faithful  men. 
They  were  deeply  moved  to  utter  sound  words.  Their  only 
fault — we  should  rather  say  their  great  virtue — was  the  earnest 
effort  to  bring  the  truth  of  God  fully  and  faithfully  to  the 
consciences  of  men. 

As  to  doctrine,  such  men  are  not  afraid  of  creeds,  nor  yet, 
having  clearer  light,  a  revision  of  creeds.  With  them  a  re- 
statement of  truth  would  not  "pass  over  to  recantation  of  the 
essential  of  faith.  In  the  end,  the  highest  test  of  any  doctrine 
must  be  its  fruits,  when  it  has  had  full  opportunity  for  ap- 
plication to  human  life  and  conduct.  Judging  them  also  by 
the  outcome  of  their  lives  and  teachings,  how,  in  the  later 
years,  we  have  with  great  praises  endorsed  even  the  most 
radical  words  and  deeds  of  the  fathers.  With  a  less  uncom- 
promising spirit,  could  they  have  been  the  strong  men  they 
were?  Making  their  differences — their  strong  personalities — 
the  subject  of  united  prayer,  what  a  blending  it  was  of  the 
radical  and  the  conservative  ! 

On  the  whole,  the  churches  in  general  had  but  feeble 
influence  over  the  great  moral  questions  of  the  times.  The 
Nation  itself  was  writhing  in  the  deadly  grasp  of  the  slave 
power  ;  and  when  we  think  of  these  things,  how  can  we  ex- 
aggerate the  high  and  solemn  mission  of  Oberlin  at  the  first  ? 

Is  the  case  different  to-day  ?  Some  great  questions  have 
been  settled.  But  is  the  duty,  the  mission  of  the  present  less 
serious  and  urgent  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  the  conflict  is  only 
more  subtle  in  its  nature,  and  rises  to  more  spiritual  light. 
The  "principalities  and  powers,"  "the  spiritual  wickedness 
in  high  places,"  are  certainly  none  the  less  bold  and  per- 
sistent. 


31  ^ 

Look  at  the  masses  of  organized  labor,  led  mainly  by 
atheistic  men  !  Look  at  avarice  and  low  ambition,  threaten- 
ing to  block  the  wheels  of  all  reform  movements,  and  religion 
itself  in  imminent  danger  of  being  emasculated — paralyzed  by 
a  general  assault  upon  belief  in  the  supernatural. 

It  would  seem  that  the  popular  man  is  one  who  sneers 
at  all  positive  religious  belief.  Surely  it  is  a  time  for  the 
putting  forth  of  sound  words.  The  chief  instructor  in  a  col- 
lege never  had  a  higher  task,  nor  greater  opportunity.  His 
e^^ery  utterance  goes  abroard.  The  public  press  is  many- 
tongued,  and  myriad-winged. 

Amid  all  this  the  anxious  question  with  us  out  in  the  wide 
field  is  not  what  is  to  be  the  theme  of  the  next  new  novel 
which  shall  meddle  with  theology.  We  care  not  so  much 
what  turn  the  higher  criticism  may  take,  but  how  shall  the 
best  culture  of  mind  be  brought  to  the  service  of  Christ,  and 
the  Holy  Oracles  still  more  clearly  be  made  to  appear  as  com- 
ing indeed  from  God.  Let  new  light  break  forth  !  There 
can  be  no  true  light  but  that  which  is  by  the  Holy  Spirit, 
and  from  Him  who  lighteth  every  man  that  cometli  into  the 
world. 

In  this  faith  the  foundations  here  were  well  laid,  and  to- 
day the  place  whereon  we  stand  is  holy  ground.  No  flame 
of  fire  in  a  bush  has  been  seen,  but  the  Divine  voice  has  verily 
been  heard  in  the  heart.  Oberlin  theology  has  been  the 
dominating  influence,  giving  unceasing  energy  and  zest  to  all 
other  working  forces  here.  Indeed,  this  whole  community 
has  been  the  Theological  Seminary. 

What  could  have  been  more  impressive  than  the  eager 
inquiry  of  President  Mahan  and  his  co-laborers  after  the 
holiest  life,  and  the  richest  possibilities  of  Christian  experi- 
ence as  their  daily  ideal  ?  His  successor  put  intense  empha- 
sis upon  the  power  of  prayer,  and  the  personal  agency  of  the 
Holy  Spirit.  Still  later  the  call  for  a  "Revival  of  Righteous- 
ness," as  essential  to  the  maintenance  of  all  that  is  vital  and 
valuable  in  religion,  was  not  less  timely  and  significant. 

A  noted  skeptic  says:  "  The  churches  of  to-day  speak,  for 


32 

the  most  part,  in  an  apologetic  tone.  They  apologize  and 
explain  away  what  a  former  generation  asserted  dogmat- 
ically. The  age  is  one  of  material  splendor  and  intellectual 
achievement,  but  of  spiritual  emptiness.  The  people  are 
easy-going.  They  wish  to  enjoy  even  religion  with  a  kind  of 
sensuous  enjoyment,  whereas  for  conviction  of  truth  we  must 
struggle,  and  the  conflict  must  go  on,  and  the  moral  indolence 
of  the  present  day  be  suppressed. ' ' 

If  these  be  the  sentiments  of  an  agnostic,  what  is  then  the 
fitting  utterance  of  the  teacher  of  Holy  Writ,  one  whose  im- 
press is  to  mould  the  men  who  shall  come  through  college, 
and  in  time  attempt  the  work  of  Gospel  ministry  ?  We  are 
here,  Mr.  President,  to  express  the  highest  hopes  that  the 
choice  of  a  new  standard-bearer  has  been  Divinely  controlled, 
and  that  the  seed  hitherto  sown  shall  in  the  future  bring 
forth  a  still  more  abundan  t  and  gracious  fruitage. 

We  expect  that  true  progress  will  be  made  without  dig- 
ging up  or  removing  the  old  and  well  proved  landmarks — 
those  principles  and  doctrines  which  are  always  vital  to  faith, 
and  which  if  once  true  are  true  forever. 

It  is  a  privilege  to  be  here  to-day,  to  express  our  gratitude 
for  the  sympathy  and  the  help  which  we,  as  students,  received 
in  former  years.  May  the  blessing  of  God  rest  upon  those  who, 
growing  old  in  service,  are  here  to-day.  Moses  presented  to 
the  people  his  own  successor  ;  and  we  may  enter  into  sym- 
pathy with  his  own  feelings  when  he  said,  *'L<et  the  Lord, 
the  God  of  the  spirits  of  all  flesh,  set  a  man  over  the  congre- 
gation who  shall  go  in  and  out  before  them. ' '  And  may  it 
be  ours  to  say,  as  we  give  our  confidence  and  sympathy  to  the 
new  President,  as  he  shall  enter  into  the  duties  and  trials  of 
his  high  office,  ' '  The  spirit  of  Elijah  doth  rest  upon  Blisha. ' ' 


ADDRESS  OF  PROFESSOR  H.  C.  KING 

REPRESENTATIVE   OF   THE   FACULTY 


It  is  made  my  great  pleasure  to-day,  Mr.  President,  on 
behalf  of  your  colleagues  of  the  Faculty,  to  bring  you  a  word 
of  congratulation,  of  well-wishing  and  of  allegiance. 

I  congratulate  you,  sir,  that  you  have  been  called  to  the  head 
of  a  growing  college;  that  for  you  there  is  open  to-day  the 
fountain  of  perpetual  youth.  You  are  not  brought  into  a 
graveyard  to  look  about  on  tombstones,  with  their  inscrip- 
tion— "Think  on  dying,"  but  you  are  brought  into  connec- 
tion with  a  college  so  ' '  rammed  with  life, ' '  to  use  a  phrase 
of  lyowell's,  so  crowded  with  youthful  vigor,  that  its  vitality 
is  contagious,  and  you  cannot  grow  old.  You  are  not  called 
to  be  the  crown  of  a  fossil,  however  beautiful,  but  the  head 
of  a  living  organism,  albeit  at  times  its  growth  may  seem  too 
rapid  for  its  garments,  and  its  arms  project  too  far  through 
its  sleeves. 

I  congratulate  you,  sir,  that  you  are  called  to  the  presi- 
dency of  a  college  that  stands  for  something.  The  "  Oberlin 
idea"  may  be  very  intangible,  very  difficult  to  formulate, 
but  still  less,  after  your  address  to-day,  shall  we  think  it  with- 
out content.  I  congratulate  you  that  you  are  to  stand  at  the 
head  of  an  institution  which  has  definite  ideals,  aims  and 
principles  of  its  own,  which  is  not  striving  to  be  a  second 
anything  else,  but  stands  for  something. 

I  congratulate  you  that  you  are  placed  to-day  at  the  head  of 
a  college  in  which  you  believe;  in  whose  aims  and  work  and 
God-given   mission    you   profoundly   believe.       No   diviner 


34 

privilege  is  granted  to  any  man  than  to  spend  his  life  in  a 
work,  to  which,  unreservedly  and  with  joy,  he  may  give 
every  throb  of  heart  and  every  pulse  of  brain.  And  this 
divinest  privilege  is  granted  to-day  to  you.  I  congratulate 
you  from  my  heart. 

And  I  congratulate  you,  Mr.  President,  that  you  are  called 
to  the  head  of  a  democratic  college — a  college  that  stands, 
not  only  against  the  aristocracy  of  color,  the  aristocracy 
of  sex,  the  aristocracy  of  wealth,  the  aristocracy  of  cliques, 
and  the  aristocracy  of  mere  intellectual  brilliancy,  but 
a  college  in  which  the  faculty  are  open  to  the  students, 
and,  what  is  perhaps  more  remarkable,  the  students  open  to 
the  faculty;  a  college  in  which  the  trustees,  even,  are  not 
dictators,  seeking  to  checkmate  the  faculty,  but  hold  that 
curious  idea  of  their  office  that  leads  them  definitely  to  record 
their  intention  not  to  interfere  in  internal  management,  and 
who  in  time,  and  thought,  and  labor  are  co-workers  with  the 
faculty  for  the  promotion  of  the  college  they  love.  I  con- 
gratulate you,  sir,  that  in  consequence  of  their  democratic 
policy,  the  faculty  themselves  had  a  part  in  your  election — 
for  in  this  very  fact  you  have  an  assurance  of  allegiance 
stronger  than  any  that  to-day  can  formally  be  given  you. 
And  I  congratulate  you,  unfeignedly,  that  because  of  this 
same  democratic  policy  you  yourself  are  called  to  be,  not 
dictator  but  president.  It  will  happen  that  you  can  act  less 
arbitrarily;  but  the  wise  man  seeks  not  arbitrariness  but 
wisdom.  It  may  easily  happen  at  times  that  affairs  will  be 
less  smoothly  running — a  republic  often  shows  more  disturb- 
ance than  an  absolute  monarchy — but  the  disturbances  will 
be  those  of  healthful  life.  This  policy,  Mr.  President,  like 
the  blessed  state  of  matrimony,  will  enable  you  to  divide 
your  burdens  and  multiply  your  successes;  for  it  makes  it 
possible  for  you  to  lay  under  glad  tribute  the  best  powers  of 
every  man  in  your  faculty;  and  every  man,  sure  that  he  will 
be  allowed  to  count  for  all  that  there  is  in  him,  becomes 
bound  to  the  college  by  ties  that  it  will  take  a  very  strong 
call  to  break. 


35 

I  congratulate  you  that  you  are  called  to  the  head  of  a  col- 
lege in  which  you  are  free  to  stand  practically  where  all 
educators  stand  theoretically^br  character;  that  you  are 
free  to  use  all  the  means  that  shall  tend  most  certainly  to  that 
one  end — character.  And  I  congratulate  you,  moreover, 
that  standing  thus  both  theoretically  and  practically  for 
character,  you  are  free  not  to  ignore  the  experience  of  the 
past,  not  to  suppose  that  the  Christian  centuries  have  taught 
us  nothing,  but  upon  the  clear  scientific  basis  of  long  re- 
peated and  varied  experiment,  to  plant  character,  not  apolo- 
getically, but  confessedly,  avowedly,  aggressively,  unhesitat- 
ingly, on  a  religious  and  a  Christian  foundation.  And  I 
congratulate  you,  further,  that  while  free  thus  to  stand 
aggressively  for  the  great  verities — for  character,  for  Christy 
for  the  church — you  are  yet  utterly  untrammeled  by  church' 
lines  and  creeds.  You  sign  no  formula,  you  will  never  nee(^ 
to  consult  any  catechism  to  discover  the  fitness  of  any  candi- 
date. You  follow  men  large  enough  to  believe  more  in  the 
working  of  the  Eternal  Spirit  through  the  ages  and  in  every 
age,  than  in  the  theological  omniscience  of  any  man  or  body  of 
men  in  any  age.  You  have  one  charge  only,  only  one  apos- 
tolic succession  to  secure:  "  The  same  commit  thou  to  faithful 
men. ' '  The  test  will  be  a  closer  one  than  that  of  any  creed^ 
and  it  will  be  living,  growing. 

I  am  able  thus  to  congratulate  you,  Mr.  President,  that 
you  have  been  called  to  the  head  of  a  college  whose  greatest 
glory  is  the  character  of  its  students  and  alumni ;  concerning; 
whose  alumni  the  world  itself  is  disappointed  if  it  do  not  find 
them  working  in  their  every  community  for  the  building  up 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  among  men.     Great  is  your  heritage.  . 

And  speaking  now,  not  for  the  faculty  but  of  them,  I  may 
be  allowed  for  a  moment  to  congratiilate  you  that  others  have 
seen  in  your  faculty  men  so  different  in  temperament,  in 
training  and  in  measures,  that  if  uniqueness  be,  according  to 
lyOtze,  the  condition  of  immortality,  they  are  quite  certain  of 
immortality,  at  least  in  part;  a  faculty  different  enough,  seem- 
ingly, to  insure  that  the  college  wagon  shall  not  run  in  ruts. 


36 

— that  is  itself  not  so  much  a  wagon  as  a  road-scraper,  seem- 
ing to  allow  no  possibility  of  ruts.  I  congratulate  you  on 
the  promise  of  a  clear  road.  I  congratulate  you  that  the 
faculty  care  less  for  consistency — that  ' '  bug-bear  of  little 
minds" — than  for  progress;  and  yet,  that  differing  as  they 
may  and  do  often  as  to  means,  you  may  know  their  agree- 
ment as  to  the  great  aims,  and  that  there  is  made  possible, 
therefore,  a  harmony  that  is  the  more  real  because  not  a 
mechanical  uniformity.  Upon  a  genuine  harmony  of  think- 
ing and  differing  men,  you  are  to  be  congratulated ;  from  a 
uniformity  that  comes  from  the  domination  of  two  or  three, 
may  you  be  delivered.  And  if,  perchance,  some  ungracious 
friend  should  whisper  in  your  ear,  Mr.  President,  that 
according  to  the  old  adage — young  men  for  war,  old  men 
for  counsel — you  are  likely  to  have  more  war  than  counsel 
on  your  hands,  I  may  only  suggest,  sir,  that  you  are  not  an 
old  man  yourself,  and  that,  moreover,  these  young  men  are 
every  year  growing  older,  and  that  some  of  them,  perhaps,  are 
^pretty  old  for  their  age,  and  that  in  any  case,  it  happens  with 
college  instructors  as  with  many  other  spirited  animals,  that 
if  you  get  what  you  want,  you  must  "  catch  them  young." 

It  is  certainly  fitting,  Mr.  President,  that  I  should  con- 
gratulate you,  after  your  inaugural  address  to-day,  that  you 
stand  for  a  college  so  broadly  representative  of  the  greatest 
and  widest  interests.  But  most  of  all,  Mr.  President,  I  con- 
gratulate you  that  you  have  been  called  to  the  head  of  a 
college  in  whose  history  the  providence  of  God  is  plainly 
to  be  seen,  and  of  whose  mission,  and  message,  and  future 
you  may,  therefore,  feel  assured.  This  blessing  and  this  trust 
you  share  with  all  your  fellow  workers. 

And  I  congratulate  you,  finally,  that  it  is  yours  to  be  the 
fourth  in  the  line  of  Mahan,  and  Finney,  and  Fairchild;  and 
thus  I  may  pass  to  our  first  wish  for  you.  If  in  Hegelian  for- 
mula I  may  make  Finney  the  thesis,  and  Fairchild 
the  antithesis,  may  it  be  yours  to  be  the  synthesis, 
Finney,  the  fearless  fighter,  the  zealous,  single-eyed, 
the  religious  prophet  and  seer — representing  the  Prophets 
of    the    old    Covenant.     Fairchild,     the      thoughtful,     the 


37  

philosophic,  the  symmetrical — standing  for  the  normal,  for 
the  wholesome,  for  benevolence,  for  the  revival  of  righteous- 
ness, for  life — representing  the  Wisdom  of  the  Old  Covenant; 
may  it  be  yours  to  unite  Mahan,  the  I^aw,  Finney,  the 
Prophets,  and  Fairchild,  the  Wisdom  of  the  Old  Covenant, 
and  make  the  transition  to  the  New. 

May  it  be  yours  to  preside  over  a  college,  every  one  of 
whose  students  and  faculty  is  absolutely  loyal  to  the  truth, 
and  in  earnest  to  seek  it,  and  for  this  very  reason  is  impatient 
of  trifling  and  quibbling  and  indifference,  and  lack  of  convic- 
tion, and  has  become  capable  of  mighty  convictions, 
of  mighty  surrenders,  of  mighty  endeavors;  a  college 
whose  religion  is  not  aesthetic  nor  ascetic,  but  the  life  that  is 
life  indeed,  and  which  therefore,  recognizes,  not  vaguely, 
that  man  has  three  natures,  but  recognizes  the  three  fully  in 
their  God-given  relations  and  mutual  dependence,  and  that 
believes  that  what  God  has  thus  joined  together  man  puts 
asunder  at  his  own  great  loss  and  peril ;  and  that,  remember- 
ing that  the  body  is  foundation  and  condition  and  medium, 
meets  its  every  student  with  the  challenge  of  Rabbi  Ben 
Ezra: 

Thy  body  at  its  best. 
How  far  can  that  protect  thy  soul  on  its  lone  way? 

And  in  the  attainment  of  these  high  ends,  already  clearly 
indicated  by  you,  I  may  pledge  to  you  our  knightly  oath  of 
allegiance,  department  by  department. 

I  pledge  you  a  department  of  mathematics,  keen  as  the 
edge  of  sarcasm,  and  as  unerring  as  love;  that  in  its  inner 
sanctuary  of  the  purely  mathematical,  allows  the  sacrilegious 
tread  of  no  despairing  empiricivSm  that  does  not  know  whether 
parallel  lines  may  not  meet  in  another  world;  but  that, 
because  it  may  here  claim  absoluteness,  in  humble  modesty 
crosses  itself  and  confesses  that  in  the  realm  of  life — the  realm 
always  of  the  only  probable — it  may  not  dictate. 

I  pledge  you  a  department  of  natural  science  that  shall 
observe,  record,  experiment,  generalize,  classify,  and  draw 
inductions  with  the  painstaking  exactness  of  the  great  biogra- 
pher of  earth  worms;  but  that  shall  not  forget  that  man  is 


38 

not  a  mere  registering  and  classifying  animal;  that  remem- 
bers that  underneath  all  science  there  must  lie  a  metaphysics 
quite  other  than  the  shallow  empiricism  of  the  unthinking 
mind ;  that  knows  that  human  nature  is  a  part  of  nature,  and 
that  the  ideal  has  its  claims,  and  will  not  suffer  the  atrophy 
of  the  best  in  man;  that  recognizes  that  science  has  its  seven 
riddles,  insolvable  by  science,  and  its  three  great  gulfs  im- 
passable by  science. 

I  pledge  you  a  departmentof  history  that  shall  be  impar- 
tial, accurate,  painstaking  in  research  and  induction,  and 
careful  in  the  limitation  of  its  conclusions;  but  that  will  not 
mock  a  unity  seeking  mind  with  mere  bundles  of  labelled 
facts,  without  unity,  without  interpretation,  without  thought, 
without  evolving  plan,  without  end;  that,  with  Bunsen,  sees 
God  in  history,  and,  with  Augustine  and  Edwards,  recog- 
nizes an  end  great  enough  to  justify  the  cost  of  centuries. 

I  pledge  you  a  department  of  political  science  that  shall 
not  be  more  skeptical  and  pessimistic  tham  Hume,  or  the 
founder  of  ' '  dismal  science ' '  himself;  that  will  not  assume 
selfishness  as  its  one  guiding  star;  but,  willing  to  blink  no 
hardest  fact,  still  believes  in  the  possibility  of  the  application 
of  the  ethics  of  Christ  to  every  social  problem,  and  with 
patient,  assiduous  study  and  toil,  seeks  to  evoke  personal  de- 
votion to  this  test  of  the  twentieth  century. 

I  pledge  you  departments  of  language  and  literature  that 
shall  maintain,  in  the  face  of  a  sense-following,  pleasure-lov- 
ing and  utilitarian  demand,  the  justification  by  thought  of 
the  minute  study  of  thought's  own  instrument  and  embodi- 
ment, and  the  eternal  fitness  of  the  study  of  the  eternally 
beautiful. 

I  pledge  you  departments  of  music  and  art  that  justify 
themselves  in  their  response  to  God-given  instincts,  and  are 
not  merely  technical,  but  educational,  because  conscious  of 
their  own  aims,  appeals  and  principles,  and  are  handmaids  to 
all  the  ideal  in  man,  because  anticipating  and  sharing  with 
religion,  philosophy  and  love,  the  concrete  embodying  of  the 
ideal  in  the  real. 

And  I  pledge  you  a  department  of  philosophy,  clear  that 


39 

it  wants  only  the  truth,  and  therefore  fearless  and^"opHn-- 
minded ;  that  bases  itself  on  facts  of  science  and  psychology, 
and  proceeds  from  them  in  firm  belief  in  its  own  laws;  that 
welcomes  the  investigation  of  every  phenomenon  of  the  knee- 
jerk,  but  believes  with  Wundt,  that  mind  is  more  than  any 
physiology  can  show;  that  knows,  with  Tyndall,  that  if  we 
could  follow  every  motion  of  every  molecule  of  the  brain, 
there  would  still  remain  a  chasm  between  the  physical  and 
the  psychical  "  intellectually  impassable  ;"  that  with  Lotze, 
finds  the  mechanical  no  less  mysterious  than  the  spiritual, 
and  believes  that  it  knows  mind  even  better  than  matter; 
that  believes,  with  Simon,  that  that  which  paralyzes  thought 
cannot  be  true  for  thought;  that  will  not  crucify  to  a  narrow 
system  a  wider  life;  that,  while  trusting  reason  unhesitatingly, 
on  the  same  grounds  in  all  reason  recognizes  the  legitimacy 
of  the  whole  nature,  believing  that  no  single,  logical  princi- 
ple may  formulate  personality,  and  that  a  philosophy  or  theory 
of  life  which  dries  the  fountains  of  emotion,  paralyzes 
thought  and  withers  will  at  its  inception,  has  no  claim  to  urge 
at  the  bar  of  reason. 

May  it  be  yours,  then,  Mr.  President,  to  preside  over  a 
college  whose  members,  while  grappling  the  deepest  problems 
of  thought  "apply  Christian  principles  in  an  earnest  spirit  to 
current  evils;"  where  the  largest  force  is  personality;  where 
men  count  more  than  things,  albeit  they  are  very  costly  things; 
where  the  aim  is  not  the  turning  out  of  finished  products,  but  the 
sending  forth  of  growing  men  and  women,  less  loyal  to  their 
teachers  than  to  the  spirit  they  have  seen  imperfectly  shown  in 
them.  And  in  this  high  service,  Mr.  President,  my  friend 
and  my  brother,  it  is  my  great  pleasure  to  give  you  my  hand 
in  pledge  of  the  allegiance  of  all  your  colleagues  in  the 
Faculty, — and  there  are  few  ties  more  close  than  those  which 
bind  the  members  of  this  Faculty.  Each  one  of  us  would  be 
your  Jonathan,  strengthening  your  hand  in  God ;  and  to  this 
high  service,  into  which  we  are  divinely  called,  may  Almighty 
God,  whose  you  are  and  whom  you  serve,  whose  we  are  and 
whom  we  serve,  make  us  able. 


ADDRESS  OF  AMZI  LORENZO  BARBER. 

REPRESENTATIVE  OF  THE  BOARD  OF  TRUSTEES. 


Mr.  President:  I  deem  myself  happy  to  speak  on  this 
memorable  occasion  in  behalf  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  al- 
though I  accepted  the  part  with  reluctance  because  others 
deserved  the  honor  and  would  have  rendered  better  service. 
When,  twenty-four  years  ago,  I  stood  upon  this  platform  to 
receive  my  diploma,  the  office  of  a  Trustee  of  Oberlin  College 
appeared  to  my  boyish  fancy  as  a  very  high  and  exalted  one; 
ranking  almost  with  that  of  a  United  States  Senator.  The 
Trustees  of  that  early  time  were  very  wise  and  powerful  men, 
of  large  physical  and  mental  stature.  ' '  They  were  giants  in 
those  days."  Time  has  in  a  measure  rectified  the  vision  and 
given  a  truer  perspective;  but  I  am  sure  that  some  halo  will 
ever  attach  to  the  forms  in  which  memory  weaves  the  faces  of 
those  who  then  sat  in  dignified  array  on  this  very  platform. 
Alas!  but  few  of  them  are  living,  and  only  two  of  the  sur- 
vivors are  now  members  of  the  Board.  Of  these  two,  one 
was  elected  in  1845,  ^^^  ^^^  rendered  46  years  of  continuous 
service.  He  is  now  absent  in  Europe.  The  other,  elected  in 
1866,  today  delivered  the  Charter  and  Seal  of  the  College  to 
his  successor  in  the  office  of  the  Presidency.  God  grant  that  his 
last  days  may  be  his  best  days,  and  that  his  life  may  long  be 
spared  to  be  for  us  at  once  a  pattern  and  a  benediction. 

The  Trustees  of  today  are  modest  men,  and  it  will  be 
neither  fitting  nor  necessary  to  speak  of  their  virtues.  And 
yet  I  cannot  refrain  from  referring  to  one  who  is  also  in 
Europe,   although  his  heart  is  with  us  today,  and  of  whom  I 


41 

think  we  will  all  agree  it  is  not  inappropriate  to  say  that  by  his 
munificent  gifts  to  the  College  and  by  his  faithful  personal 
attention  to  its  affairs,  he  deserves  to  be  distinguished  at  once 
as  the  Model  Trustee  and  the  Model  Alumnus, 

Responsibility  begets  conservatism,  and  so  it  is  quite  safe 
to  say  that  the  Trustees  of  Oberlin  College  will  be  conserva- 
tive. This,  put  into  plainer  English,  means  that  the  Trustees 
will  make  safe  and  profitable  investments  of  the  funds  of  the 
College;  they  will  adhere  to  the  customs  and  traditions 
of  the  past,  and  allow  of  changes  only  when  they  are  clearly 
wise  and  best;  they  will  act  as  a  balance  wheel  to  keep  all 
parts  of  the  complicated  machinery  of  the  College  Department 
in  steady  and  uniform  motion  for  obtaining  the  highest  ef- 
ficiency and  best  results.  Last,  and  by  no  means  least,  when 
recommendations  come  from  the  Faculty  asking  for  additional 
instructors  and  appliances,  you  maybe  sure  the  Trustees  will 
act  discreetly,  and  unanimously  refer  the  matter  to  a  com- 
mittee for  further  consideration.  What  will  come  of  it  there- 
after, I  will  not  now  undertake  to  say.  I  fear  that  too  often 
the  matter  may  be  put  into  some  convenient  pigeon-hole. 

But  the  Trustees  will  do  more  than  this;  they  will  act  ag- 
gressively. They  will,  both  individually  and  as  a  body,  do 
all  in  their  power  to  promote  the  interests  of  the  College  and 
to  provide  needed  funds  for  the  purpose.  But,  is  it  fair  to 
expect  the  Trustees  (and  now  I  speak  for  the  rest  and  not  for 
myself)  to  "work  for  nothing  and  board  themselves;"  to  pay 
their  own  traveling  expenses,  amounting  in  some  cases  to 
$50.00  or  1 1 00. 00  for  every  session  attended;  to  give  their 
time,  and  then,  in  addition  to  all  this,  to  provide  the  funds 
for  the  uses  of  the  College  as  well  ? 

I  ask  these  questions  not  in  any  spirit  of  complaint  (for 
there  is  not  the  slightest  occasion)  but  to  set  out  clearly  what 
the  function  of  the  Trustees  is,  and  to  remind  ourselves  that, 
after  all  is  said,  Oberlin  College  is  not  the  College  of  the 
Trustees;  it  is  not  the  College  of  the  Faculty-;  it  is  not 
merely  the  College  of  Undergraduates.  In  its  fullest  and 
largest  sense  it  is  and  must  always  be  the  College  of  the  Alumni 


42 

and  of  all  who  receive  instruction  within  its  doors.  Primarily 
from  its  Alumni  and  students,  and  indirectly  through  them, 
must  every  College  receive  its  principal  gifts  and  bequests. 

Omitting  the  present  year,  Oberlin  has  graduated  2,537, 
of  whom  2,160  are  still  living.  The  number  of  students 
registered  in  the  last  catalogue  exceeds  1,700,  of  whom  there 
were  1,300  in  actual  attendance  at  one  time.  The  number 
in  the  College  proper  is  between  400  and  500,  and  has  in- 
creased in  10  years  by  more  than  130  per  cent.  The  Faculty 
has  kept  pace,  and  now  numbers  over  70  against  47  but  5 
years  ago,  the  regular  Professors  having  increased  from  18  to 
26.  The  College  now  offers  109  courses  in  all,  of  a  term  each 
(most  of  which  are  4  or  5  hour  courses)  of  classical  college 
work,  in  17  departments  of  study.  The  student  has  4,713 
hours  (not  counting  labratory  work)  of  elective  work  from 
which  to  elect  1,098.  The  elective  courses  have  increased 
from  7  to  90  since  1883.  These  are  striking  figures,  and  show 
how  wonderful  has  been  the  growth  during  the  past  few 
years.  Turning  to  the  financial  condition  and  requirements 
of  the  institution,  we  find  that  the  general  endowment  is  less 
than  half  a  million,  besides  trust  funds  for  scholarships  and 
special  uses  amounting  to  about  $200,000.00.  For  the  year 
1890,  the  total  receipts  from  all  sources  except  the  Conserva- 
tory of  Music  were  nearly  $82,000.00  and  the  total  expendi- 
tures were  about  $81,000.00.  The  receipts  from  the  Con- 
servatory were  $35,000.00  and  the  expenditures  about 
$29,000.00. 

These  figures  may  seem  large  to  those  who  have  given 
little  or  no  thought  to  the  requirements  of  modern  institu- 
tions. Harvard,  Yale  and  Cornell  have  each  many  millions 
of  endowment,  and  some  of  them  receive  in  single  years  gifts 
and  bequests  amounting  to  more  than  double  the  entire  gen- 
eral endowment  of  Oberlin.  Yale  alone,  in  1890,  received 
over  $1,000,000,  one-half  of  which,  however,  came  from  the 
Feyerweather  estate.  In  a  recent  article  Prof  King  has  stated 
that  Oberlin  "could  today  wisely  place  $1,000,000  without 
making  a  single  needless  expenditure. ' '  Now,  if  Feyerweather 


43 

had  given  $500,000  to  Oberlin  for  the  endowment  fund, 
the  Trustees  would  have  been  compelled  to  invest  it,  and  at 
5  per  cent  per  annum  it  would  produce  only  $25,000  yearly. 
This  sum  divided  by  2,000,  the  number  of  living  Oberlin 
Alumni,  is  only  $12.50.  In  other  words,  if  the  Oberlin 
Alumni  should  each  send  to  Oberlin  a  sum  equal  only  to  the 
tuition  of  a  single  term,  the  College  would  at  once  realize  as 
much  as  it  could  obtain  from  a  year's  income  on  $500,000. 
The  potency  of  a  multitude  of  small  sums  is  well  understood 
by  financiers.  Last  year  Yale  graduates  residing  in  New 
York  began  a  movement  to  secure  regular  contributions 
yearly  by  Yale  Alumni.  The  scheme  has  proven  highly  suc- 
cessful; so  that  President  Dwight,  in  his  last  Annual  Report, 
devotes  more  space  in  commendation  of  it  than  he  gives  to 
the  half  million  received  from  Feyerweather's  estate. 

The  founders  of  Oberlin  College  adopted  the  Oberlin 
Covenant,  the  first  principle  of  which  read  as  follows:  "We 
will  hold  and  manage  our  estates  personally,  but  pledge  as 
perfect  a  community  of  interest  as  though  we  held  a  com- 
munity of  property." 

This  pledge  on  the  part  of  later  generations  at  least,  has 
been  honored  more  in  the  breach  than  in  the  observance; 
but  surely  the  Alumni  of  Oberlin  will  not  permit  the  Alumni 
of  Yale  to  surpass  them  in  loyalty  to  and  in  remembrance  of 
their  Alma  Mater. 

In  1780  the  population  of  the  United  States  was 
3,000,000;  during  the  first  quarter  of  a  century  it  doubled 
and  became  6,000,000;  during  the  second  quarter  it  doubled 
again  and  became  12,000,000;  during  the  third  quarter  it 
doubled  again  and  became  25,000,000,  and  during  the  fourth 
quarter  it  doubled  the  25,000,000  and  became  50,000,000. 
We  are  now  galloping  through  the  fifth  quarter,  and  the  po- 
pulation at  the  end  of  it  will  fall  not  far  short  of  100,000,000. 
That  is  to  say,  the  fifth  single  period  of  25  years  will  witness 
as  large  a  growth  as  the  previous  100  years  had  done. 

Nor  is  this  all.  The  population  of  Great  Britain  is  over 
30,000,000.      Its  area  is  only  100,000  square   miles,  or  about 


44 

300  to  the  square  mile.  Our  own  area  is  over  3,000,000 
square  miles,  not  including  Alaska.  If  our  country  ever 
becomes  as  thickly  populated  as  Great  Britain,  we  will  have 
over  900,000,000. 

To  live  in  such  a  country  and  in  such  an  age  is  a  grand 
thing.  But  to  us  all  it  brings  corresponding  responsibilities; 
to  none  more  than  to  Oberlin  College  and  to  its  Alumni. 

The  quarter  of  a  century  during  which  your  beloved  pre- 
decessor presided  over  this  institution  has  witnessed  wonder- 
ful things  in  the  growth  of  our  Alma  Mater,  and  of  this 
country  and  the  world  at  large.  But  these  are  trivial  and 
small  compared  with  that  which,  God  willing,  shall  take 
place  during  the  coming  years  of  your  administration.  That  you 
will  prove  equal  to  all  its  responsibilities  is  the  belief  alike 
of  the  Faculty  which  unanimously  nominated  you  and  of  the 
Trustees  who  have  elected  you  to  fill  the  Chair  made  sacred 
by  the  grand  men  who  have  preceded  you:  Mahan,  Finney, 
Fairchild.  May  God  bless  you!  May  God  bless  Oberlin 
College! 


ADDRESS  OF  HON.  JOHN  SHERMAN. 


I  accepted  with  pleasure  the  invitation  to  attend  the  com- 
mencement exercises  of  Oberlin  College,  for  I  knew  that  I 
should  hear  some  things  worth  hearing.  I  came  to  hear,  not 
to  speak,  and  warn  you  that  what  I  shall  say  will  be  with- 
out preparation.  It  is  not  my  first  visit  to  this  place.  I  saw 
Oberlin  in  my  younger  days  and  have  seen  it  many  times 
since,  but  it  is  growing  so  fast  that  I  can  hardly  find  my 
landmarks.  I  had  heard  of  Oberlin  before  I  saw  it,  as  many 
of  its  early  friends  and  founders  lived  in  Mansfield,  and  two 
of  them.  Father  Keep  and  Mr.  Walker,  preached  to  me  the 
doctrines  and  humanitarian  ideas  of  Oberlin.  I  have  always 
been  interested  in  the  sturdy  principles  taught  here ;  the  love 
of  liberty,  human  rights,  without  distinction  of  color  or  caste, 
and  especially  the  love  of  the  Union  in  critical  times,  and 
the  wide  and  deep  influence  in  forming  the  character  of  a 
multitude  of  young  men  who  have  had  the  good  fortune  to 
be  educated  here.  I  have  no  doubt  caught  something  of  this 
influence  by  contact  with  the  men  who  laid  the  foundation 
of  the  College. 

The  principal  idea  I  wish  to  impress  upon  the  young  men 
before  me  is,  that  while  the  education  and  moral  teachings 
of  to-day  are  the  same  that  have  been  taught  in  the  past,  and 
will  be  to  future  generations,  yet  each  age  and  generation 
will  have  its  peculiar  and  changing  life  and  duties.  The  ge- 
neration to  which  I  belonged  was  called  on  to  meet  a  great 
crisis,  involving  the  existence  of  Republican  institutions. 
Its  struggle  with  slavery  and  the  civil  war  that  followed  will 


46 

always  be  regarded  as  an  epoch  fully  equal  in  importance  to 
the  revolutionary  period.  The  results — the  abolition  of 
slavery  and  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  and  especially  the 
demonstration  of  the  strength  of  our  form  of  government — 
constitute  an  inheritance  to  the  present  and  future  genera- 
tions as  valuable  as  Independence  and  a  written  form  of 
government  bequeathed  to  us  by  our  Revolutionary  Fathers. 
It  will  be  conceded  that  the  men  of  my  time  have  filled  the 
full  measure  of  their  duty,  with  fearful  sacrifice  of  life  and 
property.  The  members  of  this  graduating  class  and  their 
compeers  will  not,  I  trust,  be  called  upon  to  perform  such 
a  task;  but  you  will  be  expected  to  develop  the  resources 
and  to  extend  the  influence  of  a  great  country,  already 
among  the  most  powerful  nations  of  the  world. 

Your  field  of  duty  will  be  to  combat  and  subdue  and  util- 
ize the  forces  of  nature ;  to  substitute  metal  for  wood,  to  de- 
velop and  employ  electricity,  petroleum  and  natural  gas  and 
machinery  as  substitutes  for  manual  labor.  For  this  duty 
you  have  superior  advantages  of  education,  and  the  benefit 
of  the  wonderful  discoveries  of  the  past  thirty  years.  You 
have  been  taught  the  highest  lessons  of  life:  reverence  for 
God,  love  of  country,  and  the  same  charity  for  others  that 
you  hope  for  yourself.  If  you  will  do  in  your  day  and  gene- 
ration for  your  country  and  mankind  as  much  as  has  been 
done  by  the  generation  now  passing  away,  you  will  transmit 
to  your  successors  a  Republic  doubled  in  population,  with  re- 
sources the  human  mind  cannot  now  conceive,  and  an  ex- 
ample and  light  for  all  the  nations  of  the  world. 


14  DAY  USE  i 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recalL 


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REC'D 


JAN  19 -66 -.^PM 


LOAN  DEPT. 


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General  Library 

University  of  California 

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